Every year, when the idols of Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara are taken out in a procession from the Hayagriva-Madhava temple to the banks of the Brahmaputra, Md Tamij Ali and 20 other Muslim inhabitants of Sualkuchi in Hajo, Assam, and nearby villages prepare for a very special role: they have to turn up in their finest silk kurta-pyjamas and lead the 15-km long procession.

“My father, my grandfather, and probably his grandfather too had taken great pride in performing this sacred responsibility for the Hayagriva-Madhava temple,” says 65-year-old Ali, a resident of Faqirtola, a village on the foothills of the Garudachal hill in Hajo.

But the Hayagriva-Madhava temple is just one instance of religious amity in Hajo, a multi-religious centre in Assam’s Kamrup district that’s about 28 km across the Brahmaputra from Guwahati.

On the Garudachal hill is Poa-Mecca, the oldest Muslim shrine in Assam. The shrine is revered by people of all faiths. Poa-Mecca has a 16th century mosque as well as the mazaar of Giasuddin Auilya, a Sufi preacher who is believed to have come all the way from Persia to set up the mosque.

And as some believe, one visit to Poa-Mecca is equal to one-fourth of a trip to Mecca, with poa in Assamese meaning one-fourth of a kg. There are also people who say that the preacher had brought along with him one poa of soil from Mecca to lay the foundation of this mosque.

“These could be myths woven over the centuries. But the fact is that for the Hindus here, Poa-Mecca is as important and sacred as Hayagriva-Madhava and the four other temples in Hajo. And it’s the same for the Muslims,” says Syed Mahtab Ali, an elderly Muslim who is also a member of the Pancha-Tirtha Parichalana Samiti that looks after the five Hindu shrines here.

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